Korean Parents' Attitudes Toward Their Children's Maintenance of Heritage Language in Australia

Abstract

This chapter explores the attitudes of Korean immigrant parents in Australia—a relatively unexplored population in the literature—toward their children’s maintenance and learning of their heritage language (HL), i.e., Korean. The study also shares their experiences of maintaining their children’s HL, as well as their challenges and limitations. Twenty parents (4 fathers and 16 mothers), all living in the Brisbane area but with various backgrounds in terms of age, length of residence in Australia, and number and ages of children, participated in a semi-structured interview. Findings concurrent with previous studies of various ethnic groups in different countries were observed. All the Korean parents in this study showed positive attitudes toward their children maintaining their HL and strongly encouraged their children to use various but similar strategies reported in previous studies, such as reading HL books, using internet resources, and bringing their children to ethnic schools. Challenges, such as relying heavily on parents’ guidance at home and poor curriculum or poor-quality materials in Korean ethnic schools, were also reported. More support from the Korean government and more attention to HL teacher education were suggested.